


Vocabulary Expansion

by Corvid_Knight



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dirk is both too smart for his own good and an absolute dumbass, Fluff, Gen, Kidfic, no SBurb AU, then again he IS six
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 22:10:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19343650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight
Summary: Dirk learns a new word from Mom's girlfriend. Unfortunately, he doesn't get a chance to get the meaning, and so has to deduce it himself.Well.Tryto deduce it, at least...





	Vocabulary Expansion

Your name is Dirk Strider and you are very smart for your age. That's not something that anybody tells you outright, but you've still heard your bro (who is not actually your bro but your dad, he told you so when you asked why you didn't have a dad and after some thought you decided that this is even better than whatever you thought he was going to say) tell his boyfriends and girlfriends how smart you are. 

They usually don't believe him until they catch you going through the books D checks out from the library for you. You're still offended that the library card that six-year-olds get isn't good for anything but a little section of the books. How unfair is that? You like the kid's chapter books (Pony Pals fucking _rule_ ) but you _also_ want to go through all the books on engineering and check them out one by one. Sure, there's words you don't know in there, but that's what a dictionary is for. You like to expand your vocabulary.

"Expand" and "vocabulary" are both words you learned from the dictionary. They were some of the first ones you looked up, actually, and you were fairly sure what they meant because of context clues. (Not that you knew what context clues were then. D told you that was how you found out what some words mean. You proceeded to look "context" up in the dictionary.) 

Anyway, right now you're considering context clues for another word. Well, two words—that's called a phrase, right? When you put two words together to form a part of speech, it's a phrase. The phrase you are currently considering is one that your bro's big sister's (who is your aunt, not your sister, and not your Mom either even though that's what you've been calling her since you learned to talk) girlfriend called him a couple minutes ago, when everyone but your big bro was headed out the door. 

You frown at your pile of legos and decide to consider this in pieces. Like the legos. 

The first word is one you know; your best friend Jake has a pet rat. His name is Winston Churchhill. He (Jake) brings him (Winston Churchhill) over sometimes; from that, you know that your big bro is not literally a rat. But what do rats do, that D might also do? 

They're soft, round, and furry. D is not really any of those things. He has some soft bits—you're really good at accidentally finding them when he's laying on the couch trying to watch a movie with you and you are climbing around on top of him trying to get comfortable—but he's too skinny to be round, and nothing about him is furry other than his hair. Even that is a lot longer than Winston Churchhill's. Also a lot whiter. (Winston is a brown rat. With spots.) 

What else?

Rats like to chew, but D doesn't do that. 

They're lovable? 

Hm.

Yeah, that's it. Definitely. "Rat" here means "lovable." Now for the second word. 

This one is more of a puzzle, because you've never heard it before. That means it's not a common word...hmm. Is it similar to any word that you _have_ heard? 

Yes, at least one. "Mustard." Does this help you? No. You don't think this phrase has anything to do with condiments. ("Condiments" is a word you looked up in the dictionary.) Sometimes words that sound the same have absolutely nothing to do with each other. "Homophones" and "homophobes" are not the same thing, for instance. 

So, you're at a dead end. Or you would be, if you didn't have your dictionary.

The word is not in the dictionary. You didn't know there _were_ words that weren't in the dictionary. You glare at the pages, close the book, and then open it again because it just occured to you that there might be two _S_ 's instead of one. (There's not.) A _V_ instead of a _B_? You know sometimes those letters sound the same, and even if you're pretty sure that you heard a _B_ theres's always a chance you were wrong. (Nope.) Uh...a silent _E_? 

Still nope. This word is not in your dictionary. You feel cheated. 

Context clues, then. You can look at those. _How_ did she say it? 

Affectionately. In fact, she stood on her tiptoes to kiss your big bro's cheek right after she said it. (Mom's girlfriend is shorter than both D and Mom, but she can pick them both up as easy as D can pick you up. Not at the same time, though. At least you haven't seen her do that.) She said it the same way that Mom calls you a teddy bear. (You're not sure why she calls you a teddy bear, but you do like the teddy bear that she gave you for your last birthday. It's three feet tall, super soft, and wears one of your shirts with a nametag that you got in a quarter machine pinned to it. The nametag says MARGARET, because you decided that was her name. D had to write it for you because while you can write pretty well, you can't write that small.) 

Anyway, that solves the mystery. "Rat" means lovable, "bastard" is just a generic term of endearment, together it's "rat bastard," a sweet pet name for somebody you like. This proves that you are a vocabulary detective. 

You file this information in the back of you mind, in the event that you need it. Sooner or later, you're sure that you will.

* * *

Your big bro has had a variety of boyfriends and girlfriends in what you can remember of your life. He's never had any that weren't nice to you—the worst that could be said of any of them is that a couple didn't really seem to know what kids were or how to treat them, which was actually more fun than almost anything. 

_Almost,_ because Gauge is really, really fun. (Gauge is D's current boyfriend. He has blue eyes and brighter blue hair, which is usually up in a ponytail except when he's trying to teach you how to braid. You're not doing too well with that so far.) Gauge knows exactly how to treat kids, or at least he knows how to treat _you,_ and about once every two or three weeks he demonstrates that knowlege by picking you up and taking you somewhere. The details aren't too constant; you've done the zoo, an art museum (that one was fun because he finished it off by swinging by an art store and letting you pick out ten bottles of acrylic paint, which you used to redecorate one of the walls in your room. The only downside was how long it took to wash the paint out of your hair), the mall three times (you _like_ the mall. There's a place that has build-a-robot kits; you've spent roughly ten hours there testing out the demo models), and a car museum. (Gauge is the one who likes cars. Listening to him talk about them is fun.) 

Today was the mall again, but even more exciting this time because you got to bring in one of your finished projects from a previous visit and show it to the guy running the robot shop. The fact that he asked you five whole times if you did it yourself was kind of weird, but he seemed to believe you once Gauge backed you up, and he was _definitely_ impressed by how well you could control the little guy with the preprogrammed commands. You think you kind of lost him when you started talking about how you want to install something with more processing power so you can add some commands of your own, though...but to be fair, that plan is still a little bit complicated. You need to work on it some more. 

Next time, you'll have it ready to show him. However, "next time" is somewhere in the future (which you have a somewhat nebulous grasp on at the best of times.) The present, that lovely moment of _now,_ belongs totally to the breadsticks that you have been slowly consuming for the last fifteen minutes. This is the second basket of them. Gauge has eaten two, you've eaten the rest. At this point you don't even want to _think_ about actually eating food once your big bro gets to the restaurant. 

Which he's just done, going by the way Gauge's expression just changed—from amusement at watching you rip a breadstick into pieces small enough to be properly coated with cheese sauce, to something brighter and happier and focused past you, at the door. It's the kind of look that makes you wonder why people in real life can't have hearts in their eyes like in Sailor Moon; Gauge and your bro definitely love each other enough for it. 

You consider that question as D sweeps past the guy trying to direct him to a table, stops to lean down and give Gauge a quick smooch, and then holds out his arms. It's an invitation to drop your bread chunks and stand up on your seat, not-quite-falling and not-quite-jumping into your big bro's arms. (To the obvious dismay of the waiter, who's still hovering.) 

D laughs, though, and smooches your cheek one, two, three times, until you can't help but giggle and push at his face. "Hey, kiddo. Miss me?" 

This is an Important Moment, you suddenly decide as you nod in answer to his question. Maybe it's the amount of cheese sauce you consumed or the sugar in the soda that you drank, but right now seems like enough of an occasion to put your new vocabulary to use. "Yep, missed you, rat bastard." 

Now, your big bro has never dropped you. You know that he never _would_ drop you—toss you up in the swimming pool and scoop you back up out of the water, yes, drop you on the mostly-deflated air mattress that you keep for that specific purpose, definitely, but really dropping you? No, that's never going to happen. Still, when you use your new phrase, you're pretty sure that he _almost_ loses his grip on you, because you feel yourself slipping down a little. 

But you immediately wrap your arms around D's neck (prompting a muffled and vaguely worrisome choking sound) and it's fine. Well, mostly fine, other than the expressions on Gauge's and the waiter's face (barely contained glee and poorly masked horror, respectively.) 

Uh-oh. 

Your bro makes another strangled sound even though you let go of his throat as soon as he got a better grip on you, and hands you off to Gauge despite your slightly panicked attempt to cling to him. Once Gauge has you, though, it's a bit easier to calm down. Mostly because he's laughing. "He" as in Gauge, although you think D is _also_ laughing. 

It's kind of hard to tell, though, because as soon as you're safely on Gauge's lap D sinks into your recently-vacated chair and doubles over, forehead nearly resting on his knees as he shakes and makes muffled sounds that could be anything. You are so fucking confused. 

Maybe the waiter is also confused? Anyway, he's not laughing. "Sir, if you're going to make a scene I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to—" 

"Yeah, I'm going to call it and say we're done here." Gauge shakes his head and kicks at D's ankle, earning himself a noise that you do not have the vocabulary to categorize. "Babe. Get ahold of yourself." 

"Dude—" Your bro hiccups as he raises his head; did you really make him laugh hard enough to cry? Apparently so. "My name's Rat Bastard now, it's official, I'm—" 

"You're a _dork_ and a _terrible_ influence." (He sounds like he's smiling. You still have to twist around to check. Yep, that's a smile.) "Now get up before I leave you here to pay for Dirk's nineteen breadsticks." 

For some reason, that's enough to sober your bro up. "Fuck. Seriously?" 

"Hey, he was enjoying himself." Gauge shrugs and shifts you around in his lap enough that he can get to his feet; once he's up he stands you up on the chair, turns around, and waits for you to climb up on his back. Which you do; piggyback rides are the _shit._ "Don't worry, I didn't actually let him eat nineteen." 

"Thank god." The waiter dropped the bill on the table somewhere in there; as Gauge settles your weight properly and coaxes you to let go of his windpipe, D scoops it up and scans it, digging for his wallet. "Like, the whole dumb blond thing is kinda _my_ role in any relationship, so—" 

"I ate ten," you inform him as you finally finish counting up the number of breadsticks you tore up and shoved into your mouth. 

Your big bro groans. Gauge laughs. The waiter lets out an audibly relieved sigh as the three of you finally head for the door.


End file.
